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bilateralism & multilateralism

The rise of trade in services: corporate manoeuvres and popular resistance
6-Mar-2023 bilaterals.org
The idea of ‘Trade in services’ is an artificial creation of the late 1970s and 1980s, designed to bring the social and public phenomenon of services under international ‘trade’ rules that would work for corporations.
Rigging the rules: How Big Tech uses stealth “trade” agreements and how we can stop them
2-Mar-2023 Third World Network
Efforts to curb the ruinous business practices of the Big Tech corporations are at risk of being impeded by “digital trade” rules negotiated in international trade pacts. It is time to overturn this anti-regulatory agenda in favour of a governance model that prioritizes digital industrialization and data as a public good.
More free trade will not solve the food crisis
8-Jun-2022 Al Jazeera
WTO has lost the trust of the people, and all governments must keep agricultural matters out of free trade agreements.
India has no plans to join the WTO govt procurement agreement
6-May-2022 Mint
India has “no plans" to join the government procurement agreement grouping of the World Trade Organization, but is open to negotiating such agreements as part of bilateral deals.
Government pledges protection for bilateral investors on AfCFTA
6-May-2022 Ghana Web
The Government of Ghana has pledged to protect Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) for countries that sign agreement with it for reciprocal foreign direct returns on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Multinational corporations and COVID-19: Intellectual property rights vs. human rights
20-Sep-2021 Socialist Project
Transnational companies today rely more than ever on IPR to structure their global value chains, writes Peter Rossman
Patently unfair: Can waivers help solve COVID vaccine inequality?
3-Mar-2021 Aljazeera
The WTO General Council gathered virtually on Monday for the first of two days of talks amid increasing calls from civil society, states and nongovernmental actors to temporarily waive patents for COVID-19 vaccines and other coronavirus-related medical products.
Intellectual property and COVID-19 medicines: why a WTO waiver may not be enough
25-Feb-2021 The Conversation
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the race to make vaccines and other useful technologies more accessible to people around the world, has once again highlighted the tension between intellectual property rights and the promotion of public health.
From globalization to ecological and solidarity reshoring
12-Feb-2021 AITEC
In Brussels, the virus of free trade and the impunity of multinationals is far from receding. But social and ecological relocalization seems to us the only alternative that could embody a desirable collective horizon.
USTR Lighthizer says bilateral trade pacts conflict with multilateral trading system
10-Jul-2020 Reuters
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the world needed either a multilateral system to govern global trade or a series of bilateral agreements, but the two were in conflict with each other.
How capitalism and other viruses are ravaging the Global South
19-May-2020 Jacobin
The economic hegemony exerted by the trade regime — and related financial structures — mirrors and extends old colonial patterns of exploitation and dispossession. Its policies represent our “normal.”
e-Commerce free trade agreements, digital chapters and the impact on labour
4-May-2020 ITUC
A comparative analysis of treaty texts and their potential practical implications.
Regional MPs call for greater transparency of RCEP negotiations
10-Mar-2020 APHR
As ministers of the member countries of the RCEP meet for final negotiations over the trade agreement this week, regional lawmakers today expressed concern about the lack of parliamentary and public oversight of the deal, as well as its potential human rights impacts.
Trump sights in WTO procurement pact for leverage on UK, EU
5-Feb-2020 Bloomberg
By threatening to withdraw from the GPA, the Trump administration can increase its leverage and obtain greater public procurement concessions in bilateral talks with the EU and UK.
Europe to assess whether US-China deal is WTO compatible
17-Jan-2020 Euractiv
The EU will assess whether a US-China deal to roll back some bilateral tariffs in exchange for increased US imports to China is compatible with World Trade Organisation rules.
The US-Japan trade deal could undermine the WTO
23-Oct-2019 Atlantic Council
If the United States and others following in its footsteps begin to negotiate agreements that cut tariffs on a significantly smaller scope of products, the WTO might confront a gradual erosion of one of its central tenets—most favored nation.
Intellectual property rights in trade – to be rethought?
19-Dec-2017 IP Watch
After two decades of intellectual property regimes in trade agreements, one could have some second thoughts.
ITUC emergency resolution on MC11 disaccreditation
1-Dec-2017 ITUC
The ITUC General Council adopted an emergency resolution strongly condemning Argentina’s decision to deny accreditation to more than 60 civil society representatives to the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference.
Neoliberal Argentina bans NGOs from WTO summit in last-minute ’unprecedented’ move
1-Dec-2017 TeleSur
"The government may prevent us from coming to Buenos Aires, but they won’t stop us from mobilizing our local communities," said one organizer whose visa was denied.
EU and Canada settle cattle battle at the WTO
4-Oct-2017 Reuters
The settlement of the dispute at the WTO, which began in 1996, was facilitated by a liberalization of trade under the EU/Canada Comprehensive Economic and Free Trade Agreement (CETA).